Russian President Vladimir Putin lands in Beijing to meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.
👋 Kia ora!*
Welcome to Tuesday, where U.S. President Biden is set to travel to Israel to meet with both Israeli and Arab leaders, a suspect is shot dead by police after killing two Swedes in Brussels, and politicians get mistakenly rerouted to Disneyland. Meanwhile, Spanish online media Ethic looks at the steps brands are taking to fight ageism in advertising.
[*Māori]
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🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Biden to visit Israel on Wednesday: U.S. President Joe Biden will travel to Israel and then Jordan on Wednesday to meet with both Israeli and Arab leaders. Biden is looking to send the strongest message yet that the U.S. is behind Israel, but will also face questions about the increasingly desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza. The announcement early Tuesday of the impromptu visit came after more than seven hours of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to terms of the visit. Also late Monday, the first video appeared of a hostage held by Hamas, a 21-year-old French-Israeli dual citizen.
• Police shoot dead attacker who killed Swedes in Brussels: A 45-year-old Tunisian man suspected of killing two Swedish soccer fans in Brussels has been shot dead by police in a cafe on Tuesday. The suspect armed with an automatic rifle fled the scene after the shooting as a soccer match between Belgium and Sweden was about to start on Monday evening, triggering a massive manhunt. The gunman published a video online saying he had killed people in the name of God.
• Vladimir Putin arrives in China to meet Xi Jinping: Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing to meet his “dear friend” Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday and to take part in China’s third Belt and Road Initiative forum. This marks Putin’s first trip to a major global power since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russia’s parliament announced it has taken the first steps towards revoking ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
• U.S. House to vote on new speaker: The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote Tuesday to possibly elect a new speaker, with GOP lawmakers expected to rally their votes behind Rep. Jim Jordan. The House has been without a speaker since Oct. 3, when Rep. Kevin McCarthy was ousted in a 216-210 vote.
• India’s top court declines to legalize same-sex marriage: India’s Supreme Court said it cannot legalize same-sex marriages, after hearing arguments in April and May, with three of five justices finding that the issue should be decided by parliament. The court called instead for a “high-powered committee” to be formed to evaluate laws that indirectly discriminate against LGBTQ+ couples.
• Poland's ruling PiS lose majority in election, final results confirm: Poland’s opposition parties have secured enough votes in the general election to oust the ruling right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which came on top but fell short of a majority, final official results showed early Tuesday. Poland may not get a new government before December, after PiS ally President Andrzej Duda said he would give the first shot at forming a new government to the winning party as is the Polish tradition, but PiS will likely struggle to find allies. Read how the election is being seen in neighboring Ukraine.
• Politicians sent to Disneyland: Several hundreds members and staff of the European Parliament traveling from Brussels to the French eastern city of Strasbourg on Monday for the EU Parliament's plenary session arrived in Disneyland Paris instead. A signaling error had rerouted the special train, which is chartered once a month for the politicians to travel between the two cities.
🗞️ FRONT PAGE
French-language Belgian daily Le Soir dedicates its front page to the “Attack and night of anxiety” after a shooting killed two Swedish soccer fans in Brussels. A large-scale manhunt was launched to find the suspect, ending this morning with the 45-year-old Tunisian suspect shot dead by police in a cafe.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
Senior influence: why some brands are finally dropping ageism from their advertising
As the number of people over the age of 65 increases, some global brands are taking steps to reduce ageism in advertising, both for ethical and business motivations, reports Spanish online media Ethic.
🧓 Elderly people still rarely appear in advertising — and when they do, they are usually represented either in a stereotypical or a pejorative way. But advertising experts say the tables are turning. Although still rather limited, initiatives that defy such ageism and age discrimination are beginning to pop out. Marc Compte, professor of Information and Communication Sciences at the Open University of Catalonia, gives as an example campaigns such as #AWorld4AllAges, launched in Nov. 2021 by the WHO. The aim was to change the way people think, feel and act regarding age and aging.
📈 The important demographic weight this age group continues to gain is one of the possible reasons behind this trend, experts say. According to UN forecasts, the number of people over 65 will do more than double by mid-century. There were 761 million people over 65 in 2021. In 2050, there will be 1.6 billion in this age group
✅ Mireia Fernández Ardèvol, a professor of Information and Communication Sciences, and Compte argue that, in addition to a greater presence in ads, a positive and non-stereotypical perception of the older age group is necessary. "Beyond the impact it would have on the 'pockets' of commercial brands, it is a necessary change, a moral obligation that we all have as citizens," Ardèvol comments. “We cannot continue being ageist; it is clearly harmful to our society.”
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
$3.1 million
A long-lost 20-inch model of an X-wing fighter used in the original 1977 Star Wars movie has sold at auction for over $3.13 million. Used in the filming of the final battle in Star Wars: A New Hope, the model represented “the pinnacle of Star Wars artifacts to ever reach the market,” Dallas-based auction house Heritage Auctions said ahead of the sale. The prop had been considered missing for decades before it was discovered in a cardboard box in the garage of the Oscar-nominated model-maker Greg Jein, who died in May last year.
📣 VERBATIM
“He does not have the right to say and do exactly what he pleases.”
— U.S. federal Judge Tanya Chutkan has imposed a gag order on Donald Trump, to prevent him from issuing threats targeting witnesses and court staff working on criminal cases that involve the former president. Trump’s frequent use of vitriolic social media messages and rally speeches to attack federal prosecutors and lawyers, Chutkan said, risks “poisoning the proceedings”.
👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
• "Like Guerrilla War" — A Soldier's Dispatch From The Ukrainian Southern Front — LIVY BEREG
• What Will Hezbollah Do? Lebanon's Fate Hangs In The Balance — LES ECHOS
• Poland's Influencer #MeToo: Top YouTubers Face Allegations From Underage Girls — WORLDCRUNCH
✍️ Newsletter by Anne-Sophie Goninet and Michelle Courtois
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